Kiki Aranita

Chef & owner, poi dog
Philadelphia, usa

Kiki Aranita is co-chef and owner of Poi Dog, a restaurant and catering company that closed its Rittenhouse location in July 2020 but served Hawaii’s local food to Philadelphians for seven years and now makes sauces. In addition to running a busy fast-casual storefront, she has catered many large-scale weddings, events, and fundraisers in Philadelphia and around the U.S. For years, her goals involved celebrating the underrepresented cuisines of multicultural origins as well as seeking to minimize food waste.

She is a writer who has contributed food writing and narratives to Edible Philly, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Food and Wine, Roads and Kingdoms, and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, as well as recipes to Munchies, Vice, and many other publications and platforms. She has created content and recipe-driven videos for companies such as La Colombe, Philadelphia Magazine, and Vitamix.

Prior to the pandemic, she served on the charitable events boards of No Kid Hungry Philadelphia, C-CAP Philadelphia, Feastival, and Vetri Community Partnership’s Eat to Empower and is the current chair of the Hahn Scholarship Committee, which sends students to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the American Academy in Rome.